Rights or wrongs, Again Ill say I was against this war, but thats old news now. There cannot be any other outcome and hope its as quick as possible.

But legalities of a war where one invades another as a defence measure? And no Ill not mention oil, or morals or WMD, although I hope to God wmd is found as even in victory we will want to see the results that this action was taken for.

A report today, not from Pravda or Le Soir, but part of a report from the BBC, I offer no comment on winners making the rules and deciding who faces war crimes. We see it discussed on these forums in relation to ww2 often.

Illegal crimes? BBC transcript:

Iraqi nerves

Those I have spoken to all say the same.

Who is illegal? The invaders or the invaded? The language of the new liberator to people here is strange indeed

They are nervous. They do not like Saddam Hussein, but they do not like the British army either.

"We are not Palestine, we are not Palestine!" one Iraqi man shouted.

"You can't just occupy us."

Many say they are scared to speak. Many say they just do not want trouble, they do not want war.

Many say they cannot trust the West after Western troops went home in 1991, leaving them to bear the punishment that the Iraqi leader's men meted out.

US President George W Bush keeps talking about liberating Iraq.

"We will bring you food", he says, as if he is imitating his local preacher in Texas. "We will bring you water."

"Criminal forces"

As I write I am in a country without a visa.


Coalition forces pledge things will be different to 1991

I never passed through an Iraqi border checkpoint. I invaded, too. I came in with the British forces.

By all rights of a sovereign nation I am here illegally. By what right am in Iraq? By what right is Britain? That is what Iraqis want to know.

And listen to the language of the British forces.

A spokesman at the military headquarters in Qatar called the Iraqi militias "illegal criminal forces".

This was perhaps in reference to the law of armed conflict which defines standards of warfare, such as wearing uniforms and not using civilians as human shields.

New world order?

But whatever you think of Saddam Hussein, how can you call a man defending his sovereign nation an illegal element?

Who is illegal? The invaders or the invaded? The language of the new liberator to people here is strange indeed.

British propaganda pumps happy Arabic music into Iraqi towns near here.

They produce leaflets with pictures of a smiling British soldiers earnestly shaking the hand of a bemused looking Iraqi.

The caption reads "This time we won't abandon you".

Perhaps that is true, perhaps it is not.

This war is almost too big to comprehend.

You lie in your tent here in the desert, small beneath the sky, and try to imagine that more than one quarter of a million soldiers are here - a huge proportion of Britain's army, a huge proportion of America's.

You see the faces of the soldiers, confused, out of their depth as they try to control the crowds, and you wonder where this is going.

A giant war - the birth of a new liberator with his new language - and the birth of a new world order that feels frightening and strange.

__________________
Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.